Patients' privacy is being threatened by a proposed
national data base including details about medical records which could be accessed by
other persons, breaching medical confidentiality.

The confidentiality of medical information has long
been a tradition in medical circles, however it is under challenge now that the suggestion
for such a national medical computer listing has received support from federal and state
health ministers after a national taskforce examined the proposal last year, but it has
been opposed by the Australian Medical Association.

More acceptable to the AMA is the concept of a portable
computer record the size of a credit card that could be carried by individual patients to
provide information for doctors and chemists, but Dr Hacker of the AMA believes it should
be the patient's own decision whether or not to have such a card.

The AMA will discuss electronic health records at its
national conference in May, 2000. Opposition health spokeswoman Jenny Macklin favoured
electronic health records as a quick and convenient way of transmitting information to
doctors but opposed a national database.

These suggestions seem to be a fulfillment of a report
mentioned in The Age, 23 April,2000, released by the major charted accountant firm,
Price Waterhouse, last year (1999) based on interviews with 400 health care officials,
that there was a trend towards more use of the Internet, a better informed type of patient
and predicted a single, electronic medical history record.

The privacy bill now before federal parliament lacks
adequate safeguards in relation to the proposed data bank. Breaches of privacy should be a
criminal offense, privacy commissioners should have more authority and have more potent
audit powers over the suggested database. The recommendation to have a national data base
will make both doctors and patients reluctant to supply information on the public record,
especially if damaging the patient's interests.

A national data base does have some redeeming features.
It could be useful in compiling national medical statistics, would be useful in an
emergency and could track patients who go from one doctor to another. Even apart from the
privacy issue, such a database may contain inaccurate information that could harm health
users. The positive aspect is that, if such a national data base were to eventuate, it
could provide patients with a better understanding of their health assessments and a more
self-informed public.

The DNA data bank proposal use by police and law
enforcement officials to promote a national database of DNA samples taken from criminals
and suspects is a cause for concern. The argument is that since every person's DNA is
unique, samples of DNA found at the scene of a crime will conclusively identify the
culprit.

This was apparently the reasoning when, after a rape
and bashing of a woman in the town of Wee Waa, NSW, police insisted on taking DNA samples
of most of the town's male inhabitants, thus treating them as all potential suspects,
arguing that only the guilty need fear a DNA test.

Many of the same cautions, however, apply to this as to
a national data base of patients. Again, there is an invasion of privacy; it violates the
principle of "innocent until proven guilty"; and provides an opportunity to
"frame" someone by falsification of evidence by dishonest police or other
people. Several Royal Commissions in Australia and elsewhere have shown that police can
fabricate evidence to get a conviction. Also, the sheer volume of DNA records increases
the possibility of error and there appears to be inadequate protection against possible
abuse of power by those possessing such DNA records. The recommendation of NSW Privacy
Commissioner Chris Puplick that each state or territory should have a privacy commissioner
to oversee DNA records has been ignored by police officials.

Scientific evidence may not be infallible. Lindy
Chamberlain had a long and expensive battle to clear her name and the Irish bombing cases
in UK were mishandled.

It is a matter for concern, in view of possible abuse
of the scheme, that a UK police officer, Robin Napper, has come to Australia to try and
promote extended DNA databases in NSW and by the national Federal CrimTrac data-base
system. In May 2000 the NSW government will introduce laws enforcing mandatory testing of
suspects.

The Federal government has undertaken to remove from
its DNA database those cleared of suspicion, to give access only to authorised officers
and sentence anyone misusing data samples to two years' jail. But since much of this
material is hidden from checking by sources outside the police, it can be open to abuse.
And the case of a suspect of the Claremont killing investigation in Perth, who was cleared
by DNA testing, did not lead him to escape police attention. He was still watched and
pursued by police.

The new technology may promise conclusive evidence of
crime but can be distorted and abused by corrupt police and officials. It will need proper
safeguards to be established and maintained.